E3 2017: Bungie on Why 'The Darkness' Won't Be Addressed in Destiny 2

"We had no idea what it was."

The Darkness won't be addressed in Destiny 2 and Bungie has come forward to explain why.

Speaking to Game Informer, game director Luke Smith confirmed that while The Darkness was a mysterious term that was referenced quite often in the original Destiny, it won't be mentioned in Destiny 2.

"We've never really said what [The Darkness] means," Smith said. "Ultimately, we do owe our players a story there – what is The Darkness? – but that’s not this game. We wanted to remove as much of the extra terminology as possible and focus on telling the Destiny 2 story."

Shortly thereafter, Kotaku spoke with Smith about the absence of The Darkness from Destiny 2. When asked if the reason why it isn't in the game is because Bungie doesn't yet know what The Darkness is, he replied, "We had no idea what it was. Straight up. We had no clue."

Smith went on to reveal that the studio considered grouping all the races together and collectively referring to them as The Darkness, but the team ultimately decided the franchise deserves a better explanation. "We had taken all the races and said, 'Ah, they’ll just be The Darkness.' But that's not what the IP deserves," he said.

Destiny 2 will instead have a narrative that is focused around the Light. "We're in the process of removing the term 'Darkness' from the game," Smith noted. "Because when we're going to talk about Darkness next, we need to know what it is and have a plan for it. And we do."